4 ms·

Apologies if the word mediocre offended you. I was just trying to get a point across as succinctly as I could. Personally I don’t attach much emotion to the wo

Apologies if the word mediocre offended you. I was just trying to get a point across as succinctly as I could. Personally I don’t attach much emotion to the word. I’m mediocre at most things, of course. I tend to think of ability as normally distributed. A spread of three standard distributions covers more than 99% of the probability mass. These I think of as the mediocre. But in any significantly large group there will be outliers at +2, +3, +4 or even +5 standard deviations. This is just how normally distributed abilities (like e.g. IQ) work.

hnbad 4y ago
This is a prime example of a motte-and-bailey: The motte: - when consensus or even majority is the norm, [the mediocre] have the power - [to outlaw the outliers] is in the interest of the mediocre The bailey: - most people are mediocre You're defending the bailey but that's not what I was attacking. I very much stated that "[m]ost people are mediocre at any given thing by definition", which is what you're falling back to here as if I disagreed with that. To paraphrase, your argument was that "the mediocre" share a group interest and that group interest is to suppress ("outlaw") those who are exceptional. Instead of further qualifying that, you refer to it as human nature. You also state that consensus-seeking or "majority rule" enables this suppression. Based on your framing this is not only a thing that happens but also a bad thing. The logical but unstated conclusion is that any form of democracy or consensus-based rule is bad because it kneecaps exceptional people in their ability to be exceptional. This is why I referred to the Great Man myth, which states that historical advances are the accomplishments of singular exceptional people rather than material realities and social dynamics. Again, the crux of your argument hinges on "the mediocre" being a meaningful group that has shared interests and that these interests involve suppressing "outliers". You have demonstrated zero evidence for either of these claims.
- bjornsing 4y ago
  I think the emotional charge this has for you is a good piece of evidence. You obviously oppose the Great Man myth with a vengeance. To me it seems very plausible that you will (subconsciously of course) use any influence or power you come into to make sure no “Great Man” gets a chance to outshine your “social dynamics”. I’m curious, how do you account for progress in fields like mathematics where the mediocre seldom make any contributions at all?
  - hnbad 4y ago
    You keep insisting that I am being "emotional" (presumably to frame yourself as "rational"?) and you keep avoiding actually confronting what I say. So let me put this bluntly: Am I correct in reading your comment as stating that democracy is undesirable because it holds back those who are exceptional?
    - bjornsing 4y ago
      > Am I correct in reading your comment as stating that democracy is undesirable because it holds back those who are exceptional? No.

hnbad 4y ago

This is a prime example of a motte-and-bailey: The motte: - when consensus or even majority is the norm, [the mediocre] have the power - [to outlaw the outliers] is in the interest of the mediocre The bailey: - most people are mediocre You're defending the bailey but that's not what I was attacking. I very much stated that "[m]ost people are mediocre at any given thing by definition", which is what you're falling back to here as if I disagreed with that. To paraphrase, your argument was that "the mediocre" share a group interest and that group interest is to suppress ("outlaw") those who are exceptional. Instead of further qualifying that, you refer to it as human nature. You also state that consensus-seeking or "majority rule" enables this suppression. Based on your framing this is not only a thing that happens but also a bad thing. The logical but unstated conclusion is that any form of democracy or consensus-based rule is bad because it kneecaps exceptional people in their ability to be exceptional. This is why I referred to the Great Man myth, which states that historical advances are the accomplishments of singular exceptional people rather than material realities and social dynamics. Again, the crux of your argument hinges on "the mediocre" being a meaningful group that has shared interests and that these interests involve suppressing "outliers". You have demonstrated zero evidence for either of these claims.

bjornsing 4y ago
I think the emotional charge this has for you is a good piece of evidence. You obviously oppose the Great Man myth with a vengeance. To me it seems very plausible that you will (subconsciously of course) use any influence or power you come into to make sure no “Great Man” gets a chance to outshine your “social dynamics”. I’m curious, how do you account for progress in fields like mathematics where the mediocre seldom make any contributions at all?
- hnbad 4y ago
  You keep insisting that I am being "emotional" (presumably to frame yourself as "rational"?) and you keep avoiding actually confronting what I say. So let me put this bluntly: Am I correct in reading your comment as stating that democracy is undesirable because it holds back those who are exceptional?
  - bjornsing 4y ago
    > Am I correct in reading your comment as stating that democracy is undesirable because it holds back those who are exceptional? No.